Monthly State Retail Sales Data Dictionary1

Year-over-Year Percent Changes

state_retail_yy.csv – File provides monthly year-over-year percent changes for each state and North 

American Industry Classification System (NAICS) combination 

Variable Name Variable Type Description

fips Character 2-digit State Federal Information Processing Standards

(FIPS) code. 

For more information on FIPS Codes, please reference: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/codelists/ansi/ansi-codes-for-states.html

Note: The US is assigned a “00” State FIPS code

stateabbr Character States are assigned 2-character official U.S. Postal 

Service Code. 

The United States is assigned “USA” as its stateabbr 

value

For more information, please reference: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/codelists/ansi/ansi-codes-for-states.html

naics Character Three-digit numeric NAICS value for retail subsector 

code

“TOTAL” assigned to the Total Retail Sales excluding 

Nonstore Retailers.

yy<YYYYMM> Numeric Numeric year-over-year percent change in retail sales 

value

S = Suppressed due to data quality concerns

1 The Census Bureau has reviewed this data product to ensure appropriate access, use, and disclosure avoidance 

protection of the confidential source data (Project No. P-7506880, Disclosure Review Board (DRB) approval 

number: CBDRB-FY24-0004).
Standard Errors

state_retail_se.csv – File provides monthly standard errors for the year-over-year percent changes for 

each state and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) combination 

Variable Name Variable Type Description

fips Character 2-digit State Federal Information Processing Standards

(FIPS) code. 

For more information on FIPS Codes, please reference: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/codelists/ansi/ansi-codes-for-states.html

Note: The US is assigned a “00” State FIPS code

stateabbr Character States are assigned 2-character official U.S. Postal 

Service Code. 

The United States is assigned “USA” as its stateabbr 

value

For more information, please reference: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/codelists/ansi/ansi-codes-for-states.html

naics Character Three-digit numeric NAICS value for retail subsector 

code

“TOTAL” assigned to the Total Retail Sales excluding 

Nonstore Retailers.

se<YYYYMM> Numeric Numeric standard error for year-over-year percentage 

change in retail sales value

S = Suppressed due to data quality concerns
Coverage

state_retail_coverage.csv – File provides a categorical measure of the non-imputed coverage of the data 

for each state and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) combination 

Variable Name Variable Type Description

fips Character 2-digit State Federal Information Processing Standards

(FIPS) code. 

For more information on FIPS Codes, please reference: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/codelists/ansi/ansi-codes-for-states.html

Note: The US is assigned a “00” State FIPS code

stateabbr Character States are assigned 2-character official U.S. Postal 

Service Code. 

The United States is assigned “USA” as its stateabbr 

value

For more information, please reference: 

https://www.census.gov/library/reference/codelists/ansi/ansi-codes-for-states.html

naics Character Three-digit numeric NAICS value for retail subsector 

code

“TOTAL” assigned to the Total Retail Sales excluding 

Nonstore Retailers.

cov<YYYYMM> Character Character values assigned based on the non-imputed 

coverage of the data. 

A = non-imputed coverage is less than 10% of the 

state/NAICS total.

B = non-imputed coverage is greater than or equal to 

10% and less than 25% of the state/NAICS total 

C = non-imputed coverage is greater than or equal to 

25% and less than 50% of the state/NAICS total

D = non-imputed coverage is greater than or equal 

to 50% of the state/NAICS total. 

S = Suppressed due to data quality concerns